Draining Doll
by jazelock
Summary: When the merging of a heartless shell and the unconscious heart is interrupted, everything shatters. A brief deviance from the KH2 timeline.


Sora's eyelids seemed to flutter briefly as he gently bobbed in place. Roxas stared wistfully at the other boy, all traces of rage gone now. It was as if all his simulated emotions, however strong they were, had fled in the presence of the real deal. His Somebody just had that overwhelming effect on everyone.

"Hayner," he murmured softly. "Pence. Olette." Would they miss him? Would they even remember him?

-

In a room far removed, Riku stared in a flurry of conflicting feelings at the monitor. Sora was there, still asleep, but so close to waking. All his efforts, his voluntary descent into darkness, his battles, his grief, were culminating. The moment seemed too quiet.

_Sora…_

On the screen, Roxas reached out a minutely shaking hand and a pale glow emanated from it as Sora's heart responded. The same white light appeared to surround Sora's floating figure as Roxas closed his eyes. His chin lifted as the glow raced up his arm and bathed his entire body in radiance. He felt nothing. Stillness.

Into that sacred atmosphere came the swirl of black beneath Roxas's fading form. It came so swiftly and silently that, adding in the element of surprise, Roxas was suddenly gone before anyone could react. And not gone as in absorbed-back-into-Sora gone, but swallowed-and-kidnapped-by-a-dark-corridor gone.

"No." Riku said it first, quietly. It was a useless denial; he knew what had happened, was not disbelieving what he had seen in the least. Because the moment had been too still, too perfect, had been…expecting the last minute intervention. So Sora's eyelashes still cast dark shadows upon high cheekbones and the other side of his heart was gone again.

"No. NO. NO! That insufferable, interfering FOOL!" DiZ had sprung up from his chair; his fist flew down now with a crack upon the machinery before him. Within the confines of his crimson bandages, his eyes blazed with unconstrained fury, fixed on the last disappearing wisps of black. Whatever private reasons for his vengeance upon Nobodies were racing through his head, screaming through his veins. He whirled around, the air crackling around him with the force of his rage. "Find him. Bring him _back_."

-

"Roxas. Damn you, wake up." Axel patted the boy's cheeks frantically. He whipped around with a snarl when footsteps approached, his hand stretched out and ready to conjure flame or chakram if need be. The whisperings of shoes meeting pavement grew louder, closer, before turning away and disappearing in steadily muting tones down another alley. But the momentary scare had convinced Axel that the real Twilight Town, more specifically only a few blocks away from the mansion, was not somewhere either of them should be right now. "Wake up…" he whispered again, clenching a fist in frustration when Roxas would not obey and, after a moment's deliberation, spiriting them both away to another world in a whirl of darkness.

-

"Roxy. Please, please wake up. Glare at me, bitch at me, just wake up and do that, please."

_Roxy? _

"Mmm?"

It makes a sound. High, high like a string breaking, wind rushing past the trailing end. "Roxas!" Pause and he takes this moment to work muscles he hadn't known were there. Red veined lines outlined in black lift and he sees red spikes, green circles, two black triangles, and a lot more white but even more black. The arrangement of the first three shift ever so slightly and they are suddenly a lot closer than they were before.

He shifts dry lips and works out the rounded noises and hisses into the same combination he had heard the red, green, black thing make. "Rr-rroxaasss."

The green circles, and they're a very shiny green with black centers like seeds, move all the time, but now they move so they are centered on him. Pink squiggles he had not noticed amidst all the white before move now, moving with the noises, and there are more rounded sounds. "Oh no. No, no, no."

He mimics again, doesn't like this noise as much, having to scrunch up his face a little uncomfortably to make it, "Nnno. Nnnno. No." He gets it in the end, an almost perfect replica, but he still doesn't like it.

The green circles disappear into the white for a moment and he is startled. And the pink lines begin moving again, but very fast this time, and he has no time to remember each sound, so he sits and lets the sounds wash over him. "Roxas, oh god. I didn't…I never thought you would…oh fuck, Xemnas is going to kill me, we can't go back now, oh god, everyone's going to kill me."

Green reappears and the black pinpricks are pointed at him for a very long time. He squirms a bit after a while and repeats, "Nnno." Suddenly, he spots white shining dots moving. But they aren't exactly white because they're moving against the expanse of white, from green past black triangles. He eventually comes to the conclusion that they're colorless but take on the whiteness from…he looks up and is dazzled. Reds, oranges, pinks, all moving, all different shades. He reaches up, tries to steal some of the color with his fingertips, but stops, fascinated by bands of black and white across _his _white. But his white is darker than the other white with the red and green and black and he holds up his white to compare.

He touches the other white and finds that the shining dots are…they disappear when he touches them and spread across his fingertips. Cool and slippery. Beneath them, the white is warm. Green circles disappear again and that sound again, "Roxas…"

"Roxas," he echoes. The pink lines curve gently and he is pulled against the black. The black is warm and he wriggles closer to it. A thick line of inkiness peels away from the mass of the same color and wraps around him. A blowing of heat and wind above his color-gathering things before pressure taps him in the same spot. "Roxas."

"Roxas," he repeats obediently, the sounds rolling easily from him now.

The pressure pushes him up a bit and he can see the red, green, black again. Only, instead it's now black, green, red, and the white's still there. And pink. They are moving. "Axel."

Harsh breath, hiss, round sound. "Aaxeell," he murmurs, and snuggles against the black heat.

-

Axel let him sleep again, more confident that the blond will wake up this time. He tousled golden hair absently and wrapped his arms more securely around the limp body. While his actions were slow and unconsciously done, his eyes stayed alert, skimming along sunset lightened sand, back uneasily to glance at the sleepy seaside town before them.

But damn, they were screwed. And what had possessed him to bring them both to the islands? Home of that Riku kid, hello, anything actually functioning right upstairs? Ok, so he had been in a panic, was still in a panic and if he didn't calm down right the fuck now, he was going to get the both of them killed. Axel forced his eyes away from their darting path and stared unflinchingly at the bright horizon. Whether because of the colors' similarities to that of fire's or because the sunset reminded him of happier days upon the clock tower, the coolness of melting ice cream seeping through the material of his glove, Axel did not stir until the sky began to seep a deep shade of purple. Even then, he did not look down at Roxas, but continued watching night swallow the world with darkness and little splashes of stars emerging softly, painstakingly walked his mind through the various worlds he knew of.

It took him only moments, now with his mind no longer racing on pure adrenaline, to decide where they were heading for next. And with that problem solved, Axel finally allowed his eyes to meander downwards. Roxas was smiling in his sleep.

-

"Ok. Lesson number one."

"One."

"Very good." Axel grabbed Roxas around the waist before the blond could happily skip away into the water. At this current state, he was not sure Roxas knew how to swim. "Ah, ah. Mustn't drown yourself."

"D-drown," Roxas protested and tried to drag himself towards the lapping water. Axel sighed. "Roxas, while a romantic double suicide right now sounds wonderful, it wasn't exactly what I was thinking of when I got us both here." He dangled one of his drawstrings in front of Roxas's scowling face and his attention was immediately diverted. "Here," Roxas mimicked and swatted at the hanging curiosity.

"Yes, here," Axel agreed and cast a glance at their surroundings. Now that he thought about it, what was it with him and beaches? He hated the damn things. The salty water that clung to everything, the sand that got _everywhere_. And just the large expanse of water that never ended. The concept of eternity was just an uncomfortable one; you lived, or existed in their case, and then died, or faded, and then…?

Roxas was tugging at his sleeve. "Axel." And he sounded so normal that Axel's heart would have skipped a beat for a moment before he remembered. "Right. Lesson one." He pointed. "Ocean."

"Oshhun."

"Yes. The ocean is bad. Do not go near it, got it memorized?"

"Memmoriiii…zzed?"

Fourteen lessons later, Axel set Roxas loose and kept an extremely close eye on him as the boy plopped himself down in the sand and began tracing in it. When lines in the sand began taking on more recognizable forms other than random squiggles and slashes, Axel actually bent down and inspected the drawings. While Roxas's artistic abilities paled in comparison to Naminé's, his busy scribbling was decipherable. Axel looked and nearly smashed a fist into the sand to send granules flying everywhere. Except he didn't, only glared fiercely at the sandy ridges of the Kingdom Key. It stared politely back at him.

He tilted his head back and closed his eyes in frustration. He hated that damn Keyblade. So it gathered hearts for the betterment of Nobodies. In theory. So what? He hated it still for having stolen Roxas away from him. Axel glared down at the drawing in silent not-hatred. _If it weren't for you and your precious Sora_, he snarled silently, _Roxas would still be in the Organization. He'd still have his memories. He wouldn't be…broken._ _You broke him._

_No, __**you**__ did_, it retorted smugly, and Axel tore his furious gaze away. He barely managed to soften his features in time when a hand tugged hesitantly at his shoulder. "What, Roxas?" Roxas blinked innocently up at him and pointed silently at a new drawing in the sand. Five circles. Eight spikes. The childishly skewed chakram coaxed a smile from him.

-

One hundred seventy-two lessons and eleven stolen meals later, because how the hell was he supposed to keep track of days in a place where the sun never came up, they ran into trouble. Well, to be more accurate, trouble ran into them. In the form of a spiral of darkness and a Nobody.

Axel's eyes shot open in startled panic before his mind caught up with his body and his arm shot out to drag Roxas back away from what little light fell upon him. It was too late. Roxas stared up with curious gleaming eyes at the dark figure that had frozen mid-step upon emerging from the implosion of black.

The figure tossed back his hood in a blur of movement. Mussed dirty blond hair and bewildered oceanic eyes. "Axel? Roxas?!"

"Demyx?" The hostile fire in Axel's eyes died down. "What the hell are you doing here?"

The sitarist stepped closer and stopped when Axel automatically flinched away, tugging Roxas along with him. "Man, you are wrecked, aren't you?" When Axel merely narrowed his eyes, Demyx blew out a long breath upwards, sending stray bangs drifting. "Why I'm here. To compose. Get some peace and quiet. Xemnas is not happy, by the way, no thanks to you and Roxas."

A ghost of a smirk flitted across Axel's face. "Yeah, I have that effect on him."

Demyx grinned. Then his eyes focused on Roxas and he stared at the boy for a few seconds before yelping. "Wait a sec! You've got Roxas back! Well, come on, let's go!"

Strangely, Axel found he had been expecting this moment, but now that it had actually come, whatever snappish words he had been saving fled. He felt suddenly drained. He pulled Roxas closer to him and stared wearily at the boy he had betrayed the Organization for. Glittering blue eyes met his. Roxas lifted a hand and thrust a finger at the general direction of Demyx. "Thaaat."

Axel ignored the sudden alarm that sprang onto Demyx's face and smoothed Roxas's hair. "Demyx. That's Demyx."

"Demeex."

"Yes." Remnants of his temper began returning in slow bursts of exasperated misery. He looked up to see Demyx closer and watching with wide eyes. "What," he sneered.

Demyx either obliviously breezed by the harsh note in Axel's voice or chose to ignore it, as he continued to stare at Roxas. "Wh…what happened to him?"

"What the fuck do you think?!" His voice a tad too high for his liking, but finally having someone who could listen to him and understand what every word meant caused a spigot to shoot on in his mind and the pain just poured out in a torrent now. "That fucking old geezer kidnapping—oh 'scuse me—Nobody-napping him with that blind prematurely-grey brat. Having his damn memories go pfft like that. Not remembering his fucking best friend and then remembering just in time to get snatched _again_ by the same mummified prick and shoved into his idiot somebody and me only able to get apparently half of him out! And apparently not the half with sanity! So now guess what this is? This is Roxas the Nobody with no heart and now little to no brains! Go tell that to the fucking Superior if you will, that we need to complete Kingdom Brains as well now!"

Axel clamped his lips together and heaved in a long breath. "And don't fucking look at me like that!"

Demyx held up both hands in a quick gesture of surrender, averting his eyes. "Ok, ok!" He paused and met Roxas's pleasantly confused eyes for several moments. "So what are you going to do now?"

Axel raised one shoulder and dropped it unenthusiastically. "Get him back to normal."

The Nocturne was still examining the depths of Roxas's eyes from a crouching position and it was with a barely audible volume that he murmured, "Can you?"

Immediately, Demyx found himself slammed up against the large boulder on the beach and a sharp gleaming spike jabbed painfully against his neck. He shifted uneasily, nerves screaming.

"Don't. Fucking. Say. That." Axel's grip was painfully tight on his chakram and his voice fared no better, barely above a strangled hiss. The chakram wheeled backwards and he flung it with a clatter of metal against the rock's surface before letting go of Demyx. "I can fix it," he repeated with a tinge of anger still present in his words. "Just give me time, got it memorized?"

"I'm not Luxord, Axel." Demyx was rubbing gingerly at his throat and Axel had to look away. "Obviously." He knelt and reached out a hand to Roxas, who had been watching wide-eyed, but silently. Roxas scurried forward without hesitation and huddled into Axel's chest. Axel lifted his head and gave Demyx a pointed look. Demyx ignored it, giving Axel a crooked grin. "Hey, I came here to play and I'm not leaving just so you can have privacy with Blondie here. Don't give me that; you won't even know I'm here."

"I highly doubt that," Axel muttered, but relented as he watched his friend summon his sitar, a stark blue against the dreary blacks and greys of the place, and wander off along the beach. Roxas perked up as faint exotic notes began drifting past their ears. "That."

"Sitar," Axel informed him and smirked reluctantly. Alright, maybe the music did help, but that didn't mean he was ever going to admit it.

-

But after that initial scare, Axel considered himself warned.

-

Maybe everything fades. Small…things below him that sting when he moves against them and the cold slippery oshun thing. Every thing was a shade of less color when they came and now even the Axel seems to be going the same way. Because green eyes are less green and the white below the eyes are blacker than they were before. And the wild red droops, more curvy than triangles now.

The Axel's lips curve down more now, Roxas notes.

-

It happened when he was awake this time. The telltale whisper of sound and hole in the fabric of space marring his view of the horizon. So when Riku stepped out of the corridor of darkness into the Dark Meridian, Axel was already gone, along with Roxas by default, running again for another world.

Except Riku was faster.

As they tumbled out into indigo lands amidst purple waters, Axel summoned all the control he could muster up to slam the portal shut. "No! NO! Damn it!"

A screech streamed through him and he shoved Roxas behind him, mind twinging a little when the boy cried out in pain, and threw a fistful of fire at the cloaked figure. Flash of light and Riku easily swung it aside with the newly summoned Soul Eater. Axel may have screamed; he wasn't quite sure but he did remember snatching his chakrams out of the darkness they were sitting in. What occurred afterwards was a blur of metal meeting metal, empty slices, and bursts of heat and reds. And then through the flickering flames, a slam and pain echoing where his heart should have been.

Axel crashed onto the ground ungracefully and the ring of flames he didn't know he had conjured up vanished. He felt small hands on his shoulders, but shook them off, pushing himself back up.

And—sweep. Slice. Fling. But when he teleported himself to retrieve his chakrams on the other side, there was the dark blade swinging towards him instead and Axel cursed, tripping backwards to avoid the blow. And—

"Blizzaga!"

—a flurry of ice and snow shot straight at him and melted upon impact. Normally, this wouldn't have fazed him, but when such a large quantity of frozen water melted and _drenched_ him…? Oh yeah, this was bad.

Axel whipped dripping hanks of hair out of his face and once again felt Roxas's worried, or so he interpreted, hands grasp his shoulders. This time, he didn't pull away, but lifted his eyes to warily watch his opponent.

"For a Nobody that uses fire, you do surround yourself with water a lot."

Ok, he had a point. But… "Cut the shit, brat. We both know what you want."

Riku shifted and Axel couldn't resist barking out a mocking laugh. "What? This place make you nervous, _Ansem_? Why don't you take off your hood?"

"Riku."

Both of them started and Axel spun around to stare at Roxas. He caught a momentary flicker of _something_—fear anger hatred—in those eyes before it vanished and all feeling reverted to mere confusion on Roxas's face. But he had…

Axel's glare summed up everything he wanted to inflict upon Riku right now. "I hate you."

"You're a Nobody. You can't feel anything."

"Yeah, well, maybe I've been hanging around the Keyblade Master's Nobody for too long. So fuck you, and your mummified puppeteer. You think I'm gonna just sit here and watch you drag him away again?"

He took faint pride in the fact that he managed to burn Riku's coat before another incapacitating blow landed on him. The world spun and a hazy impression of golden tufts and those blue blue eyes and "Axel." Before aching gave way to black nothing.

-

The water lapped against the dark shores, barely brushing up against ridges in the sand. Five circles. Eight spikes.


End file.
